COMMENTARY: Think twice before you break the knot

Christmas is a time for the family. The notion of family implies the nuclear family as the primary unit of our society. This has been the saying for a very long time.

However, the report from the Catholic Church for last year states that out of 71 marriages last year, there were 35 divorces. This is almost one of every two marriages ending in divorce. It is not my intention to advocate for marriage or divorce, since the definition of “true happiness” is ever so elusive. Whether happiness can be found in or out of marriage, I cannot tell so I will leave it up to individuals to decide.

What I can say however is that with more mutual respect, self control, compromise and selflessness within and outside the institution of marriage there would be a lower divorce rate and our society would be on a much better moral and economic footing. That being said, I venture to explore the economic consequences of divorce extracting a little from published literature.

The family has always been the basic unit of society and throughout history the household has usually been the nuclear family. Believe it or not, the two main forces behind marriage throughout history have been love and money. Regardless of which one has been the main force behind a person’s marriage the other generally assumes equal importance following the marriage.

One of the basic concepts of economics is the idea of division of labor. In most cases when two or more people are involved in the production process the output of their joint efforts is greater than the total output of each working alone. As those of us who have had the dual experience of trying to raise a family, manage a home and earn a living both as a single parent and as a couple will attest, the task is much easier as a couple than single.

However, the economic benefits of marriage go beyond the division of labor. Married couples share a single dwelling. The cost of purchasing rent, food, insurance for house and car and travel is shared. This leaves some obvious residual for savings. The greater the household savings is the greater the capital stock in the economy.

It is evident that the absolute savings derived from that mutual arrangement of the institution of marriage can be calculated. So too is the cost of divorce.

When people divorce and break up the marriage, all of these savings are lost which results in an adverse economic impact on the couple and their children. If there are any disputes over property or children, attorneys and other professionals will need to be called in and the legal costs will skyrocket. There are also costs involved with the division of assets as not all assets can be easily divided.

Once the costs of the divorce process itself are taken care of, other factors come into play. Where the couple once occupied one dwelling together, they now need separate dwellings which means that the cost of housing (rent\build and furnish) can nearly double as each now must purchase separately what they formerly shared. The residual for saving now vanishes, reducing national capital stock.

It gets uglier when children are involved. If the divorcing couple has young children there are additional costs which can be substantial.  If one spouse simply abandons the family and disappears, the other spouse gets full custody but also has to assume the full cost of raising the children.  The search for child support becomes itself a new undertaking with zero earnings. In hostile divorces where one or both spouses continue their fighting which led to the divorce, visitation rights often become another area of dispute which frequently end up in court with both having to incur legal and other fees. There are also the non-cash expenses of juggling time and plans to accommodate the visitation rights.

In the case of joint custody, which is becoming more common, there is considerably more traveling between homes and more complex scheduling which, if the one or both of the couple is hostile, can result in more legal infighting.  Also, joint custody generally requires that, in order to keep custody rights, each spouse must continue to live in the area which often results in limiting promotion opportunities that require moving or accepting a better position in another community or country.  Consequently turning down these opportunities may lead to a substantial reduction in the individual’s career and lifetime income. In aggregate this can have severe economic consequence on the society.

Divorce does have negative economic effects for society, with the first one being the courts. All divorces, both amicable and messy, require some court time and resources. This adds to the already heavy load of work clogging our court system. Most of these expenses associated with the court are paid by taxpayers. Litigants in other areas, besides marriage, are also burdened by the increased divorce proceedings as the additional load on the courts causes longer waits for everyone. There are also costs to the social service system, since the after divorce income and living expenses are not always equal leaving one, or occasionally both, spouses below the official poverty line. This reality makes them eligible to visit the ‘red clinic’ or other more legitimate welfare programs. This in turn forces the public support budget to be inflated reducing resources for more productive sectors of the economy. The costs of these programs are borne by the taxpayers as are the costs of administering the programs.

Finally, there is also the negative impact of divorce on children. These children often require additional counseling programs in schools.  Disciplinary problems escalate by children who act out their problems in that social arena. Numerous studies have shown that boys growing up in fatherless households (often the case in divorce) tend to get into trouble with the law more frequently than their peers in the nuclear family. This leads to increase costs to society both in the direct law enforcement areas where taxpayers have to pay for greater police presence, more court time and personnel, more prison officers and facilities as well as the cost of the physical damage resulting from the crimes perpetrated.

Overall these children fall way below their true academic achievement and skills development and as a result contribute less than their true potential to advancing the society. Studies have also shown that girls growing up in fatherless homes or homes where the father has abandoned them often have difficulty as adults in their relationships with men, which leads to more divorces in the future.

And so the cycle continues.